BullBearMS:This kid's real crime was that he led the fight to stop the RIAA and MPAA from being allowed to censor the internet with their SOPA/PIPA legislation.

Accessing a website from an unlocked closet is the excuse they used to hound him to death.

When even the "victim" of the crime asks for the charges to be dropped and has since made all it's contents freely available to the general public, you'd have to be an idiot or a sock puppet to claim this kid deserved decades in prison.

This kid pissed off rich people and the politicians they own had him hounded, quite literally, to death.

This kid's real crime was that he led the fight to stop the RIAA and MPAA from being allowed to censor the internet with their SOPA/PIPA legislation.

Accessing a website from an unlocked closet is the excuse they used to hound him to death.

When even the "victim" of the crime asks for the charges to be dropped and has since made all it's contents freely available to the general public, you'd have to be an idiot or a sock puppet to claim this kid deserved decades in prison.

This kid pissed off rich people and the politicians they own had him hounded, quite literally, to death.

It was really stopped by the people; the people themselves-they killed the bill dead. So dead, that when members of Congress propose something now that even touches the Internet, they have to give a long speech beforehand about how it is definitely not like SOPA. So dead, that when you ask Congressional staffers about it, they groan and shake their heads, like it's all a bad dream they're trying really hard to forget. So dead, that it's kind of hard to believe this story; hard to remember how close it all came to actually passing. Hard to remember how this could have gone any other way. But it wasn't a dream or a nightmare-it was all very real. And it will happen again; sure, it will have another name, and maybe a different excuse, and probably do its damage in a different way, but make no mistake, the enemies of the freedom to connect have not disappeared. The fire in those politician's eyes has not been put out. There are a lot of people, a lot of powerful people, who wanna clamp down on the Internet. And to be honest, there aren't a whole lot who have a vested interest in protecting it from all of that ... We won this fight because everyone made themselves the hero of their own story. Everyone took it as their job to save this crucial freedom ... the senators were right-the Internet really is out of control![24]

t3knomanser:Considering he and the alleged victim reached an understanding without needing Federal charges being filed, and the unlikelyhood of any kind of recidivism along these lines, it's a perfect example of where prosecutorial discretion comes into play.

I'd disagree about the recidivism - he did it previously with the PACER library, and has defended his actions as morally justifiable. I'd say that he'd be highly likely to do it again, in fact.That said, I agree that it's really not that terrible, and community service would be a better move. Jail would be unlikely to have any positive results in his case.

Kinek:Agreed. This, along with the nebulous nature of the crime of Computer fraud, which seems to be the catch-all term for 'You did something that we don't like with a computer. Whether that's DDOS the Dow, or break the TOS on Imgur it's all the same'. It really is one of those laws thats been twisted to be a prosecuters Swiss army knife, rather than to indicate any damage or egregiousness.

There's nothing nebulous about it. Just because you haven't bothered to read the statute doesn't mean it's nebulous or a catch-all.

I love how Farkers are so quick to jump to the government's defense on this, too. Over 30 years for breaking & entering (without actually stealing anything) - yeah, that totally makes sense. What scumbags you people are.

Giltric:As someone else in another thread said..."all the stuff he copied was available for free elsewhere"

Well maybe he should have copied it from those places and kept out of trouble.

Indeed. The crimes prosecuted here were not for infringement but for wire fraud and unauthorized access. Its more akin to breaking and entering than stealing. And if you did break into someone's home just so you could take photos of the furniture, I really wouldn't argue "Hey, that these chairs exist elsewhere, so it should have been legal" as it 1) is irrelevant to the breaking and entering and 2) is kinda dumb.